babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.

Laurent Desjardins, the francophone Manitoba Liberal MLA whose post-1969 provincial election decision to leave his "free enterprise" party and sit as a "Liberal-Democrat", providing parliamentary support to Ed Schreyer in a minority situation, gave Manitoba its first NDP government:

Most likely caused by a combination of post-retirement depression and the cumulative effects of all the concussions he suffered as a player. The "Play with pain" culture of the NFL claims another victim(does this happen with CFL players?)

Bill Stevenson, David Boone, York Hentschel and Dan Kepley were four “stars” from the Edmonton Eskimos’ dynasty of the late 1970s and early ‘80s.Three of them – happy-go-lucky Stevenson, pleasant and mannerly Boone and non-talkative and introspective Hentschel – died tragic deaths while extremely aggressive Kepley barely survived alcohol and pain killers and jailed twice for impaired driving.

The San Diego cops have now said that Seau died of a gunshot would to the chest, most likely self-inflicted.

(my own theory is that it was a chest shot, rather than a head shot, because Seau hoped that they'd do a postmortem study of the injuries his football career inflicted on his brain. I hope his family sues the hell out of the Chargers and the league if it turns out he reported concussion symptoms but was ordered to play through them.)